One local veteran is hoping to use her experience to help others suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Meg Curtis served in the Army for 19 years with many overseas deployments. She wouldn't trade the experience, but it left her with PTSD.

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"My own experience with PTSD is withdrawing from people, pushing people away, loss of interest in things I'd normally do, and I think for me, I don't know if it's for everybody with PTSD, the anxiety and the nightmares and the insomnia and that affects you when it's happening, but it affects you throughout the course of the next day too," Curtis said.

Curtis said being outside in nature and with her therapy dog has helped her heal. She wants to give others the same gift. She's in the process of creating Alice's Retreat for female veterans with PTSD.

"I kind of think of it as, active healing it's not. There's going to be no counseling, no therapy. It's just a quiet place to go and maybe learn some new skills -- if you want to paint, draw, meditate, whatever it is that helps somebody get through the day. It's just a place to get away," Curtis said.

She's looking at rural properties in North Carolina and plans to move down there this spring to build the cabin retreat with her own hands. She's writing a blog about her experience and started a fundraising page to get the project off the ground.

"We're also doing everything we can to get the word out through social media, through Twitter, through Facebook. It's going to be a process. It is going to take time, but every dollar counts and every penny will go towards creating this retreat," said Jo Anne Rickard-Barnosky, Alice's Retreat public relations.

Curtis said she hopes to have the retreat up and running in a couple of years. She hopes it will help other women rediscover a purpose in life.

"Something simple like chopping wood. You can get a sense of satisfaction from that you can carry on. It doesn't mean you have to move to the woods and chop wood and build your own cabin, but it's a step. It's a step towards realizing your own self-sufficiency," Curtis said.

After the retreat, the next step in the program is to acquire therapy dogs for the veterans.